Weekly Digest 97 - (#306 - #309) (Patreon)

The Summer Dragon Comes

When Dungeon Binder Lolilyuri, Lori to most, awoke that morning, it was by snapping violently awake knowing a dragon was coming.

"About time," she muttered to herself as she got out of bed. She reached out the bindings of lightwisps she had anchored to the corners of her room, checking their imbuement out of habit even as she activate them. Light filled her room, making her wince at the sudden illumination, and she closed her eyes out of habit. Doing so immediately made her want to lay back down and sleep, so she forced her eyes open and got to her feet, taking inventory.

Her pack containing a change of clothes, a small leather of wisp beads she had made, a small jar of dried fruit, another small, very tightly secure jar of honey, and a small coil of copper wire was ready and had been ready for some time now, but she ignored that for now. Instead she stood up, feeling the cold stone floor of her bedroom under her feet, and staggered to her private bath. She had water there, and Lori splashed water on her face to wake herself up all the way.

The water was pleasantly cool on her skin, and the sensation was enough to wake her even further.

For a moment, Lori just stood there, contemplating the utterly unpleasant task she had before her. She didn't want to do it. Unfortunately, doing so had been part of the conditions that she had agreed to with the Dungeon Binder of River's Fork Demesne for the latter's submission to Lori's authority. And at this point, she had invested so many hours of work and resources that to break her word and dissolve the agreement would result in a massive loss for her.

Lori reminded herself that going forward with it wasn't a sunk cost fallacy. It wasn't a matter of putting in good resources after bad. She'd already gained from the exchange. It was just extremely unpleasant for her. Unfortunately, it was an unpleasantness she'd undergone before, and unlike previous times, she couldn't even tell herself it would be the last time, that she would never do it again.

Taking a deep breath, she straightened up, wiped the remaining water off her face with her hand and headed back to her room.

Through her connection with her Dungeon's core, Lori felt the pressure the dragon's presence exerted on her demesne's wisps like a wave lapping on the shores of a river, pushing at the grains of sand. She could already discern the direction it was coming from as she pulled on her leather rain coat, settling the familiar garment over her shoulders. The pack she'd prepared went over one shoulder, and she checked it one last time. In their leather sack, the wispbeads rolled against one another, cloudy white and the size of one of her thumb joints.

Securing the sack and the pack, she glanced at her hat, with its wide brim and conical point. On the one hand, she shouldn't need it, since she would be underground. On the other hand, she wouldn't be underground on the way there…

Lori grabbed her hat and put it on her head, then pre-emptively secured it by tying the cords under her chin. If nothing else, the previous two times dragons had passed over her demesne it had become very windy, so best to keep it on.

She grabbed her staff from next to her bed, heading for the door. The passageway beyond was narrow for her Dungeon, only a pace wide. Lori turned towards the stairs at the end of it that led down to the main floor of her Dungeon as she bound the earthwisps of the hallways behind her to narrow the passage, keeping people from getting to her room. Normally, that wouldn't be necessary, but…

To her surprise, the doors of her Dungeon were already open. People were coming in carrying sacks improvised from blankets, rolls of bedrolls and pillows, all heading down to the second level of her demesne. They made way for her as she passed, pressing themselves to either side of the entrance to her Dungeon and stepping out of her way. Beyond the stone defensive entryway into her Dungeon, she could hear Rian's voice, her lord calling out orders and directions.

Lori scanned the horizon, but even knowing where the dragon would be coming from, she still saw no physical sign of it. That in itself was a bad sign. The further away she could feel the dragon's approach, the longer it would take to pass over her demesne and leave them be…

She concentrated on her connection to her core, and through it all the wisps in her demesne, feeling for bound lightwisps, and found two that were moving despite being anchored to earthwisps. One was right outside, just beyond the entryway crowded with people. She went towards it.

It was dark outside, though the predawn sky was slowly brightening to blue along one distant horizon that was obscured by trees and distance. Lightwisps she had anchored to the corners of buildings provided illumination, however, letting her see people already at work removing things from their homes, running to and fro, carrying things, and pushing what seemed like all of the demesne’s carts and barrows.

Rian stood there, and despite the fact he wasn’t actually doing anything special, he seemed to stand out despite not being significantly taller than anyone else. It might have been the rock with the binding of lightwisps at his feet, dramatically illuminating him from below. He was speaking to various people, quick exchanges of words before they were on to do some unknowable thing and he moved to speak to the next person.

Lori reached out to the darkwisps all over her demesne through her connection to her core, claiming, binding and imbuing them as she always did when there was a dragon. Around them, the gloom seemed to grow just the slightest bit thicker, but she couldn't have the darkwisps dispersing in the light of day before the dragon arrived. She walked towards Rian, people stepping out of her path as they recognized her.

He turned toward her as she drew close, giving her a nod. "Your Bindership," he greeted. After the summer heat that had everyone in her demesne—well, everyone but her—sweating at all hours of the day and some parts of the early night, seeing him without any dripping down his face was almost strange.

"How are you all already awake?" Lori asked. Despite all the activity, the night—well, early morning, she supposed—was calm and cool.

"Shanalorre," Rian said by way of explanation. "She woke up screaming about the dragon coming and started running around knocking on doors to wake everyone up. Then she… uh, collapsed into a ball of nerves and crying for a little bit…" He sighed for some reason. "And then she calmed down and insisted on organizing the children to move down to the second level with everything they owned. I think she's still down there getting them settled down. "

Ah. Yes, the former Dungeon Binder of River's Fork Demesne—technically she still was, but only until Lori finally managed to get around to learning enough Deadspeaking do her own healing—would feel it, wouldn't she? While the other Dungeon Binder didn't know how to use any magic beyond the healing meaning that she was able to perform instinctively, she was still perfectly capable of perceiving life with her Deadspeaking.

Well, at least they were already starting the evacuation into the Dungeon. At the distance the dragon was coming from, they had several hours to get ready, so people they should be able to get most of the valuables into her Dungeon…

Unfortunately, she wouldn't be around to see any of it.

"Is the boat ready?" Lori said.

"Clowee's waiting with your ice boat to take you downriver as fast as she can. She should have enough time to take you there and back before the dragon gets here." Rian grimaced. "We might lose the boat, though. It'll probably be too wet to pick up out of the water as it is."

"Beach it," Lori said. "I'll get rid of all the ice once I feel it on solid ground. You should at least be able to save the frame. If that's too heavy, just remove the steam jet driver and as much of the wood as you can take. That's the part that will be difficult to replace."

Her lord nodded. "River's Fork probably doesn't know a dragon is coming. Do you… do you think we can risk Clowee waiting there so she can take the rest of the children back with her?"

Lori considered that. On the one hand, the children of River's Fork would be far safer in the shelter of her Dungeon. On the other hand… "The only way any children in River's Fork will die is if I do. As I am not going to die, then neither will they."

Rian opened his mouth. Paused. "All right…" He sighed. "Well… here's hoping this works. After all, it's not like we really practiced this beyond the one time you tried it."

“The idea is sound,” Lori said.

“The idea relies on you actively paying attention to something that’s not right in front of you,” Rian countered. “While you’re presumably also doing something else that needs your attention. And while you’re somewhere you don’t want to be and would be trying to distract yourself from.”

Lori gave her first lord a flat look. “Should I stay here and let everyone there die, then?” She ignored the way some people people standing nearby looked at her at those words.

Rian shook his head. “No, of course not. It’s the right thing to do, even if a selfish part of me if screaming it’s not the smart thing to do.”

Lori had to agree. Well, partially agree. It didn’t matter if it was the ‘right’ thing to do, but a part of was screaming it wasn’t the most intelligent decision she had ever made. Still, she had given her word…

…

She really should stop giving her word to do stupid things.

“Well, enough to talk. Once everyone is evacuated to my Dungeon—” that shewouldn’t be in, a part of her wailed, “—signal me, and I’ll start sealing up everything up and altering the entryway. I still need to secure the Coldholdbefore I leave”

Rian nodded. “Everyone should be ready to go as soon as you’re done. Talk to me before you go, there might be a few things you can seal up on the way downriver.”

Lori tilted her head, then nodded. “Fine.” She turned and headed for the dock.

The dock lay beyond the stone wall that was meant to hold back the spring floods from the areas that they used near the river. Said wall hadn’t been there when they’d built the dock, but it was there now, and will likely be for the foreseeable future, which was to say, forever. At the docks, two boats waited, one significantly bigger than the other. Both were made of wood and ice

At the moment, the larger one was her main concern. The Coldhold was too big to try to fit into her Dungeon, but given all the time, effort, materials and engineering they had invested into the boat—not to mention the plans they had that centered around it—it needed to be protected from any damage the dragon could cause.

Fortunately, they'd had a contingency plan in place to for just this eventuality. They'd even sort of tested it last winter.

Lori ignored the other, smaller boat and the people waiting near it for the moment, putting them out of her mind. She reached out to the wisps of her demesne though her core, claiming the earthwisps of the stone she had long ago left stockpiled in the water under the boat. The stone flowed like liquid, and she carefully shaped them to raise up she base she had made long ago.

During testing, she managed to do this in a little over an hour. However, given how the dragon was still distant and yet on the horizon, Lori chose not to rush. The point was preserving their boat, not damaging so badly it didn't matter what the dragon did to it.

Stone rose out of the water to build walls around the boat. Given the boat was five paces wide, fifteen paces long and eight paces tall from the bottom of the hull to the top of the platform people used to see ahead of the boat for the one steering, that was a lot of stone. The stone flowed around the beams for the outriggers that helped the boat maintain its balance, because she was not going to try to enclose those as well.

Lori encased the boat in a shell of stone, which she carefully collapsed inward to force out water and air, while being careful not to damage the boat. Once she'd removed all that she safely could, she had the stone seal itself tight, keeping out water and air, then added more and more stone to both weigh it down and to put solid mass between the boat and the dragon. Then she carefully sank the whole block of stone beneath the water of the river, watching for water trickling into the block. The stone held however, and she began to move the stone block, fused to the river bottom, towards the center of the river to put as much water between it and the dragon that was coming.

By the time Lori had secured the boat in the middle of the river, the light of morning had arrived, obscured by the darkwissp she shad imbued. Those hung in the sky like dark clouds, and lingered near the ground like fog. Her stomach made its presence and emptiness known, but she ignored it. Given how people were still milling about, bringing things to her Dungeon—the weaver's families seemed to be carrying inside as much raw ropeweed as they could—it was unlikely that anyone was making breakfast.

She found Rian not far from where she'd last seen him. He broke off the conversation with a man she vaguely recognized as one of the carpenters obviously waiting for her. "The Coldholdis secured," she told him.

He let out a sigh of relief. "Well, that's one worry out of the way," he said. "You're going now, then?"

Lori nodded.

"All right. You can seal up the mushroom cave. Everyone's moved their things into the Dungeon, so now we're just trying to move as many of our supplies in as well. All the vigas is in there already, so now we're working on the planks and beams."

Lori frowned, looking in the direction of the wood storage and curing sheds. "Tell them to stop that," she said. "Bring in the benches and tables, and what beds that can fit, especially from the hospital. After that, seal off the Dungeon at your discretion and signal me when the boat gets back, and I'll start altering the defenses." The wire to her core that would imbue the darkwisps had been in place for a long time now, all she had to do was touch a binding to it. "I'll sink the wood into the ground again. That seemed to work reasonably well the last time."

Rian glanced up, then nodded. "All right, you heard her Bindership," he called to the people standing nearby. "Let everyone know."

"Yes, Lord Rian," they all acknowledged with a complete lack of synchronization and chorus.

Lori turned away, heading back to the dock and ignoring the overwhelming urge to go inside her Dungeon and just stay there.

The other boat was still there waiting for her.

Lori's Ice Boat was far smaller than the Coldhold at only three paces wide and five paces long. Like the other boat, it was a hull of ice built around a wooden frame for strength. The outside was clad with planks to prevent damage to the ice from impacts, and the inside had planks to prevent slipping on the wet ice as well as somewhere to sit.

Several people were waiting for her, the ones she'd ignored earlier. There was the ferrywoman who operated the boat—whose name Lori couldn't remember—two men whose faces were vaguely familiar—not that she could remember their names right then—a man she vaguely recognized as one of their doctors—again, no name came to mind—and Erzebed, Riz for short, one of Rian's lovers and Lori's temporary Rian when the actual one was unavailable. “We’re going,” Lori announced, getting onto the boat made of ice. Ahead of them, darkwisps lay all the way to the bottom of the river. Lori reached out through her core and moved the darkwisps on the river out of their path so that they could see where they were going using the lightwisps anchored to the front of the boat.

She sat as the others scrambled after her, finally putting down her staff and pack. As soon as everyone was on the boat, the ferrywoman moved the mechanism of the steam jet driver. Water flowed, and Lori’s Ice Boat slowly began to pull away from the dock, moving rear-first into the current of the river.

“Here, Great Binder,” Riz said, handing Lori a small leather sack as the boat began to turn, the front pointing downriver. “Rian said this was for you.”

Lori blinked in surprise. She’d been getting settled in to start sealing up the cave with part of their mushroom farm and their water hub shed. “What is it?”

“I think it’s fruits.”

Lori snatched the sack away with an unseemly haste that seemed to amuse the militia woman from whom it had been plucked. The mouth of the sack was folded instead of tied shut, and when Lori finally managed to get it open, a selection of fruits met her eyes. Happyfruits, pink ladies, micans, golden buds and hairy blueballs were all mixed together, and apparently enough time had passed none of them were wet with condensation from being taken out of the cold room.

Her stomach conveniently reminded her it was still empty, and had been since she’d woken up at least two hours ago.

“Erzebed,” Lori said, still staring at the fruits, “remind me to seal up the mushroom cave and the water hub as soon as I’m done eating.”

“Yes, Great Binder.”

The reminder set, Lori grabbed a golden bud and started peeling it open. Work could wait, she had breakfast to eat!

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An Itch In Her Mind

Rian had put a lot of fruits in the sack. There was so many, in fact, that Lori couldn't finish it. Lori gave the sack to Riz to dispose of the rest of it before settling down to get some work done before they reached her destination. While Riz and the other four ate, they passed through the boundary between her demesne and the rest of the world.

The summer heat suddenly slammed into Lori like a stifling blanket, and she felt her sweat immediately start to bead all over her everything. Lori groaned at the reminder of one of the reasons she hated leaving her demesne. In her demesne, the temperature around her immediate person, as well as things she touched, immediately adjusted to being at most pleasantly cool or comfortably warm. While there were exceptions for extreme temperatures like cold intense enough liquefy air or the heat of a pottery kiln, in theory even those would adjust given enough time.

Outside her demesne, she had no such comforts. Already she felt like she was taking a bath. A small part of her that sounded distressingly like Rian pointed out that with that much water on her person, she at least wouldn't have to worry so much about Iridescence growth.

Metaphorically kicking that part in her shins, she took off her hat—instantly regretting it as the sunlight touched her bare head and face—grabbed the wooden ladle lying on the floor of the boat, and carefully scooped up some water from the river my lightly passing the dipper through their boat's wake. The churned water filled the ladle, and she poured the water over her head. She knew the respite of the cool water would be brief, but just then, she didn't care. While her head was still cool, she put her hat back on.

She reached out and started claiming every firewisps in her vicinity.

Outside of her demesne, without the connection her cover gave her to every wisp inside it was wasn't inside a living creature, claiming wisps to form them into a binding had to be done the way she'd first learned it, the way all wizards who were merely Whisperers did it. Thankfully, being connected to her core still gave her some advantage there.

Even as she began the deep, even breathing that pulled magic into her lungs, Lori drew power from her core. It was a bottomless, inexhaustible well of power, and it was all hers. She channeled outwards, through the heat and firewisps of her internal organs, through her muscles and now out through her very, very warm skin. She claimed the firewisps immediately around her, anchoring them to other firewisps on her skin to keep them in place and binding them all together. She didn't need much, only a thin layer all around her.

Then she very carefully set the binding to destroy heat.

It was a binding she'd gotten around to using relatively recently because of the summer heat and her new responsibilities, taken from the almanac Rian had gotten from Covehold Demesne. The firewisps drew out heat from her and transferred it to the air around her, and a secondary binding airwisps would weakly circulate that air to disperse the heat. As temperature control went, it wasn't instantaneous, but it had been in the almanac because it was relatively quick and simple to set up, the low amount of imbuement it consumed over time meant most Whisperers could keep it imbued when they had a spare moment like walking from place to place, and the even if left heavily imbued and unattended for long periods of time it was unlikely to destroy so much heat as to be harmful.

Lori wished she'd known it when she'd been younger. Hot summer days had been hot.

Comfortable again, she went back to work. It also conveniently gave her a reason to keep her eyes closed, letting her ignore the sight of the Iridescence beyond her demesne's borders. The crystalline growths covered everything in a many-colored, rapidly growing layer. Trees, rocks, plants, the ground, the feathers of the beasts lazing about in the shadows of the trees, the only things not covered with the glittering Iridescence were the rocks near the river that were regularly sprayed with water.

No, she didn't look at it. There was only the darkness behind her eyes, the heat, and the slight coolness that her binding was creating.

After over a year of using her Whispering at things she couldn't see through her connection to her core, Lori had become quite accomplished at it. She still had to close her eyes to do it most of the time, but that was more a matter of being able to concentrate, and not strictly necessary.

The mushroom farm was easy to seal off. She claimed and bound the earthwisps of the stone at the front of the artificial cave of their Dungeon's mushroom farm, reshaping the stone to seal up the entrance. The stone was layered thickly to best protect the entrance behind a pace of material. One never knew exactly what would happen when a dragon passed overhead, so Lori simply put the breakable but immovable assets behind a lot of rock to try to mitigate physical damage while her other measures blunted magic as best as it could.

After that, Lori moved her attention to the wood storage sheds, where they kept the demesne's supplies of processed wood that hadn't been moved down to her Dungeon yet. She'd done this before, burying the wood storage sheds underground the last time a dragon had passed. That time, however, she'd had the sheds in front of her as reference.

Now she was in a rush. Once she reached her destination, she'd be occupied with things she had to do there, at least until Rian gave the signal to seal up her Dungeon. Given the speed the ice boat was going they'd be at River's Fork Demesne soon.

…

Well, the point of this exercise was to preserve the material and not the building, after all.

Lori began to lower the sheds into the ground, displacing the ground and stone underneath them by having the ground rise up along one side of the row of buildings. The process was slow, because even earth and stone that earthwisps had softened and moving like fluid wasn't actually a fluid. She had to consciously control them to make them move. Process was not unlike pulling out folded shirts from the bottom of the stack to lower the topmost shirt so she could reach it. Fortunately, unlike the shirts, sheds were unlikely to tip over because they still had the surrounding stone Lori wasn't displacing to keep them centered.

Once the sheds were down deep enough to Lori's satisfaction, Lori had the displaced stone that had been rising up flow and cover the arching, half-cylinder roofs of the sheds, burying the sheds under thick stone and packed dirt. One of the roofscracked and collapsed slihgtly under the weight, but Lori just let the stone solidify. The wood was what she was trying to preserve, not the buildings. She'd just rebuild them after the dragon passed.

Or maybe she wouldn't and just make some wood storage that was already underground and protected so she wouldn't ever need to do this again…

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The dragon still wasn't visible when they reached the borders of River's Fork Demesne, which was when Lori finally finished burying the wood. Given the trees in the way, that meant little, but Lori could feel it coming closer. She suspected if she could see the horizon, it would already be tainting the sky.

The settlement at the center of the demesne was on a triangle of land where two rivers met and combined into one, hence the name. Planted directly over the core was an unnaturally large tree surrounded by a circle of trees that were only smaller in comparison. Deadspeaking had been used to combine the branches of all the trees, fusing and weaving them together to form a massive dome of interlinked branches.

Perhaps it had been impressive when its creator had been alive, but in the five seasons that Lori had been coming to River's Fork, the dome had gotten progressively more and more wild, untended, and depressing. It had become clear that the structure needed active maintenance from a Deadspeaker, something the only living person actively capable of some amount of Deadspeaking that Lori knew of couldn't provide.

As the approached the rebuilt dock—the original had been gutted for materials to try and make a water break against the spring flooding earlier in the year—Lori saw people tending to the demesne's field of crops just outside the dome, as well as seemingly testing the planting terrace that had been built to given them more level ground to plant crops on. A few seemed to be collecting the fast-growing fruits from the fruit trees around the dome, and she saw a wheelbarrow no doubt full of latrine waste being pushed to fertilize the trees and restore what the quick growth had depleted.

They were seen, of course, but even so, Lori and those with her were in the middle of disembarking from Lori's Ice Boat before anyone actually approached to speak to them. She both recognized them and knew their name. Given that applied to only two people in this demesne, and one of them was someone she couldn't stand, it was good the one meeting them was the other one.

Yllian was the lord in charge of the idiots who insisted on still living in the demesne. He had originally been Binder Shanalorre's lord, back when she ruled this place, but after the latter had submitted to Lori's authority, he had been retained after proving he was capable, disciplined, could follow orders, and had the intelligence to do things on his own initiative.

"Yllian," Lori said as soon as he was within hearing range. "There's a dragon approaching. Get everyone organized and have them transfer anything they want to save in the mine, priority on clothing, bedding and anything else needed to live through the winter. Nothing that takes two people to carry, unless it's metal and irreplaceable. We don’t have a lot of space in the mine."

The man stared at her, but to his credit he didn't waste time on protestations, repeating what she'd just said, or complaining. Instead, he simply nodded. "Any other orders, Great Binder?"

Lori waved a hand dismissively. "I leave organizing everything to you. Have someone keep watch on that direction—" she pointed in the direction she could still feel the dragon coming from— "so that we have warning when it's close. I'll handle preparations at the mine." She paused, then sighed. "Inform the idiots that they have until I send the boat back to change their minds about sending their children to m—Lorian Demesne for their safety." Lori considered some more, and nodded. "That will be all."

Yllian turned and broke into a dead run.

Picking up her own pack from the boat, her pack in hand and hat on her head, Lori headed towards the mine that served as River's Fork's dragon shelter, trying not to think that two Dungeon Binders had previously died trying to protect this place from a dragon. Riz fell in behind her, the woman's own pack slung over the arm she wasn't using to hold her spear. The two vaguely familiar men and the doctor fell in behind her, all also carrying their own packs. Against her will, she tried to remember their names, but all she could recall was… something about sweat and sawdust… and scissors?

No, no, not important. Focus on the task at hand.

Still, the annoying feeling that she should be able to remember some names nagged at her, an itch in her mind she couldn't scratch…

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The Dragon Shelter

The uproar seemed to have started in full by the time Lori had cut through the dome and reached the hill the contained the demesne's only dragon shelter. The technically-still-functional but currently-inactive mine had a well-worn path to it nowadays, and someone had even taken to time to take some of the flattened river rocks and arrange them into steps at some points of the path. The entrance to the mind itself was a pair of thick doors—open at the moment—that was the first of three in the corridor leading inside. Each set of doors was meant to be barricaded with thick wooden beams and the pile of large rocks in the alcove that had been hollowed out next to them.

A stone grate was set above the outermost door, its panels recessed and arranged so as to not let light out, and would hopefully prevent small, flying dragon born abominations from realizing the grate was there and entering the dragon shelter. The second door had nothing of the sort above it. If Lori hadn't known it was there because she'd been the one to make it, she'd have missed the stone grate set into the ceiling between the first and second doors.

Lori ignored those for the moment, walking deeper into the mine. It wasn't long before they reached the demesne's secure food storage. Two men were there, standing alert and not doubt having heard them coming. Next to them, a rudimentary bound tool—a wisplight—was glowing, powered by an unmarked wispbead. They relaxed slightly when they saw it was her, both of them making hasty and awkward bows. "Great Binder," they said together as they straightened. There was still some of the hesitance in their calling her that, but they acknowledged her as their Dungeon Binder—despite Shanalorre still being alive—and obeyed her orders, and that was enough.

"We have a dragon coming," Lori said without preamble. "Double check the inventory and make sure the water's been replaced and filled." That's what they were supposed to do in the event of a dragon, but they might need reminding. "Take the wisplight with you and close the door. I need the mine to be dark."

The two former militia—or were they properly active militia of the demesne now?—stiffened in alarm, but thankfully, they made no comment about the last order. "Yes, Great Binder," they said. One picked up the bound tool while the other opened the food stores.

"And be more careful with that!" Lori snapped. "Those are hard to make!"

The one who'd picked up the bound tool sighed, but moved it with more obvious care, not letting it hit anything.

"You two, go help them count and close the door behind you," Lori said. "Erzebed, go back to the entrance and give me some warning when people start coming here. Doctor, go with her."

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said. "Come one everyone, let's get out of the Great Binder's way. Deil, Tackir, once you're done, take over guarding the food so that Yhac and Vill can help their families with packing everything."

Oh, thosewhere their names! She remembered now.

As much as Lori wanted some light to work with, that would be counterproductive. She took a deep breath, drew on the magic from her core, sent it out through her lungs and throat, and claimed the darkwisps around her.

It didn't take that long to claim and bind all the darkwisps in the mine. Lori gathered all the darkwisps together, compacting them and anchoring them into the alcove past the third door. She waited a moment, then went back to claim all the darkwisps that had taken the place of those she had bound.

She repeated this five more time, combining all the darkwisps she'd gathered into a single binding. This wasn't something she'd had to to in her own demesne—Lori took a moment to check her demesne through her connection to her core, and found the darkwisps she'd claimed and bound earlier still in place, Rian not yet giving the signal—but without a connection to River's Fork's core, she needed to claim any wisps she needed herself, and that meant going where they were.

Once she felt she had enough darkwisps for what she needed, Lori finally collected some lightwisps from outside the mine and anchored them to her staff for light so she could check on the shelter's bound tools… and the beads meant to imbue them.

The alcove behind the third door was larger than the other two alcoves that came before it. those alcoves only contained wood and stone for barricading the doors against dragon born abominations. The third alcove, however, had been excavated to make space for the things that would be needed to keep the shelter protected. Most important of these was the receptacle for the bead that would imbue the bound tool that would keep them supplied with fresh air, and the similar pair of receptacles that would imbue the shelter's active defenses… such as they were. All the receptacles were still in place, and thankfully no one had decided to put rocks or any anything else inside them.

Lori put one hand on the metal contact for the air intake that pulled in fresh air from the ceiling grate. Through the metal contact and the wire connecting it to very crude bound tool, Lori could feel airwisps anchored to it that comprised the entirety of the air circulation system. They were still in place, still bound despite not being imbued, and she resisted the urge to deactivate the binding and imbue it with a little magic to keep them it from dissolving. It wasn't needed.

"Great Binder?"

Lori looked up at the voice. "What is it, Erzebed?"

"We have people gathered outside to go into the shelter, and Clowee is ready to go with all the rest of the demesne's children," her temporary Rian reported. "Several people are asking to go with the children."

"Refuse them and send the boat on its way."

"They might object."

"Be emphatic. As to the rest who are behaving, tell them to go to the area that's designated as a shelter and stay there. No wandering in the mines. The sooner we can seal up the mine, the safer I'll be. Get back to me as soon as you finish. Leave the emphasis to someone else."

"Yes, Great Binder."

As her temporary-Rian left, Lori walked over to what at a casual glance might be mistaken for a badly carved stone bench. The stone was uneven, creating six large bumps. A slightly less casual and imaginative observer would think that it was instead four squat pots covered by a dirty canvas, until they drew close and realized it was stone and not fabric. Lori touched one of the bumps in questions, curling her fingers so her nails touched stone, and claimed the earthwisps there. Her claim spread from the points of contact, and she formed the earthwisps into a binding.

She softened a segment of the stone, thinning the already thin material even further in various places before dissolving the binding. Taking her staff, she struck the places she had thinned. The stone broke, falling off what it had been covering: a knee-high, cloudy white perfect sphere, sitting in a mild recess to keep it from rolling around.

Lori carefully rolled the oversized wispbead towards the receptacle that had been made for it, moving it slowly and making sure she had both hands on it at all times. If it got away from her, it would roll all the way down deeper into the mine, and she did not want to have to try and recover it.

Wishing she already knew how to use Mentalism so she could just pick up the bead with her thoughts, Lori maneuvered it into place onto the metal contact. Immediately, she heard air moving as the bound tool began sucking up air through the ceiling grate between the first and second doors. As ventilation systems went, it wasn't much. It relied completely on getting fresh air from outside, and in addition to leaving a weakness that dragon born abominations could enter through, any noxious vapors in the air would be drawn in as well. Still, it was better than the certain death of stuffing more than fifty people in a cave and sealing the doors. The method had worked in her demesne so far…

At least this time she had a means of at least mitigating the dragon born abominations trying to get in through their air vents… which she really should have thought of sooner, but she thought of it in time for this, so that was all right!

With the oversized wisp bead in place, ready to power the crude bound tool for a week at the least—she hadn't really tested how long the bead would last but that was mostly because there hadn't been time—Lori slid the wooden panels that would prevent people accidentally kicking it out of position or putting anything on top of it into place. Once that was done, she took a moment to check on her demesne again, searching for Rian's signal. Nothing yet. Well, Lori's Ice Boat had probably only just left to go back, so Rian would probably wait for that to return. Still, there were some things she could do until then, and best she get what she could done, since she had little else to do. She hadn't wanted to risk brining her almanac with her.

She waited for Riz to get back before she allowed herself to her distracted, though she made herself comfortable on the long niche built into one wall of the alcove next to the receptacles. Unfortunately, she didn't have her bedroll, but her pack had enough clothes to make for a functional pillow, and she could use her rain coat as a blanket. It would be like when she first started living in her Dungeon by herself again.

That had been a miserable time. The only thing that would make things as bad was if she'd be sleeping on a pile of sand. It had seemed like a good idea at the time and a stupid one since.

When Riz got back, there were people behind her, being led by someone carrying on of her wisplights. They glanced at Lori sitting in the alcove behind the third door, but continued on deeper into the mine, towards the shelter area next to the food storage.

Lori ignored them, focusing her attention on her temporary Rian. "I need to arrange some of our defenses back at home," she said. "Stay here and make sure no one bothers me." A pause as she recalled something, then amended her order. "Make sure no one bothers me unless the dragon is starting to pass over us, or everyone is inside the shelter. Can you see it already?"

"A little, Great Binder," Riz said, moving to lean back against a wall so she could see Lori and the stream of people entering the mind carrying packs and sacks and jars and blankets and other things, her spear on the crook of one arm. "There are dark clouds high, high in the sky behind all the other clouds, flashing with dragon claws. It makes it hard to tell how far away it is in overland distance. Do… do you know if it means anything the clouds are orange and green?"

"It means if they mix they'll turn brown." High in the sky? That… would probably explain why it felt so strangely distant, if there was a greater vertical distance compare to the previous two she had felt… "Keep an eye out while I'm configuring Lorian Demesne's defenses." Ugh, she hated that name. It will always be Lori's Demesne in her heart.

"Understood, Great Binder."

Lori lay back on the flat surface of the stone niche, again wishing she had a bed roll. Well, it was still better than sand. Adjusting her pack behind her head as a pillow, she closed her eyes and began securing her home against a dragon's passing.

––––––––––––––––––

The Dungeon And The Dragon

After the first time a dragon had passed over her demesne and caught her unawares, Lori had steadily started upgrading her Dungeon's defenses as well as its ability to house the people of her demesne for extended periods of time. More food storage, more water storage, more space for people, more space to bring in the demesne's resources, better defenses against dragon born abominations better air vents… Her Dungeon was hardened, well-defended, safe and comfortable.

Unfortunately, shewasn't inside it at the moment.

However, it was still in her best interest to protect it. Her Dungeon's core was there after all, and she didn't want it to be destroyed, which a dragon was well-capable of doing. If anything happened to her Dungeon's core… well, she didn't exactly know what would happen. There was a dearth of literature about what happens to a Dungeon Binder in those circumstances. At best, it would mean she would be without a core, and would at minimum lose the endless supply of magic it gave her. At worse, she could lose the ability to use all other forms of magic and leave her a mere Whisperer once more, or even die because of her core being destroyed.

Lori would rather none of those possibilities happened.

Also, her stuff was in her Dungeon, and she didn't want to lose any of the tools and equipment she had, especially her glassware!

Lying on her back in River's Fork, Lori reached though her connection to her Dungeon's core to activate the defenses that were not yet in place that she could without actually blocking off entry into her Dungeon. She began sealing off all other points of entry into her Dungeon, which at this point were the pipes running through the stone between the water hub shed next to the river and the water reservoir in her Dungeon, as well as the pipes from the reservoir to the baths outside of her Dungeon. The exhaust vent for the air was well defended enough, since it was submerged in boiling water, though she checked to make sure the binding that kept the water in that state was well-imbued.

Once that was done, she proceeded to armor the outside of her Dungeon. The stone stockpile near the front of her dungeon grew and shrank depending on whether she'd built anything or she'd excavated more of her third level—she really needed to excavate that completely so they'd finally have more secure farmland—but she always kept enough to create a defensive bulwark for the entrance of her Dungeon. Now she made it flow slowly, anchoring and fusing it to the stone of the entryway and the outside of the smithy. Carefully, she moved the stone to thicken the front of her Dungeon, especially the top of the entryway, where it was most vulnerable to breaking from something dropping on it.

There wasn't enough stone to reinforce the entire entryway, but Lori was resigned to having to rebuild parts of her demesne anyway. Perhaps it wouldn't happen, but she would rather not bet on that.

Once the stone had been distributed to her satisfaction, Lori claimed the earthwisps of the stone in the front of her Dungeon, and formed them into a binding she hadn't used in some time. The binding of earthwisps reinforced the stone's structure, making it more durable. When she had first started building her Dungeon, she had used the binding to keep the ceiling from collapsing on her, before she had started using pillars and arching load-bearing structures. The binding had honestly slipped her mind until she realized she couldn't use it in conjunction for her current designs.

She used the binding now, reinforcing the front of her Dungeon and a little bit of the ceiling of the first level so that the binding would contact one of the wires that connected to her core. The wire's direct connection to her core kept the binding imbued, allowing it to persist without her paying attention to it. Really, she wished she'd had wire back when a dragon had first passed over her demesne, when she'd had to manually reinforce the entire hill with earthwisps…

…

Oh.

Lori spent the next little while claiming the earthwisps of the hill her Dungeon was under. Well, most of the earthwisps, the ones corresponding to contiguous solid stone, since she didn't want to ruin the soil. And… well, it was built into the hill anyway, so she claimed the earthwisps of the flood barrier as well. and since the flood barrier was built right into the bedrock, she claimed the bedrock as well, and through the bedrock, claimed the earthwisps of the stone walls and floors of the hospital. And the stones of Rian's house. And…

Well, it took some time—and she resolved to never, ever tell Rian she only made this realization now—but now she was grateful nearly all the buildings she had made in her demesne had foundations that went down to the bedrock. And for those that didn't… well, the soil was directly under a building, it was unlikely to ever be used for planting anyway.

With every stone structure in her demesne reinforced—which was nearly everystone structure—Lori felt a little better about her demesne's chances. There would probably still be things in need of repair afterwards—they always had to replace roof planks—but at least it would hopefully minimize the things that only Lori could repair.

After that, there wasn't much left for Lori to do until Rian gave the signal. She took the binding of lightningwisps from the binding that kept bugs from entering her dungeon, and moved it towards the new wire that had been embedded into the stone—the now actively-reinforced stone—anchoring the binding so it touched the contact point. Carefully, she expanded the binding so that it extended across the entire entryway. At the moment it was a bit inefficient, since bugs really only needed to be kept from the front door and the intake vent above it, but once her Dungeon was sealed…

"Great Binder?"

Lori opened one eye, turning her head slightly until Riz came into view. "What it is, Erzebed?" she said. Distantly, she heard the din of people.

"Everyone's inside the shelter, Great Binder," her temporary-Rian reported. "We've managed to bring in most of the benches, and we've transferred as many of the crops we could fit into buckets in case the dragon hits the fields particularly hard. Uh, Rian told me to remind you to put some light on them so they wouldn't wilt?"

Lori quashed the urge to build the demesne a dungeon farm. Her own demesne's dungeon farm was still incomplete, she wasn't about to start building for another one. "He specifically mentioned that to you in particular?" she said dubiously.

Riz nodded. "Yes, Great Binder. Rian…"She shrugged. "You know how he is."

Yes, she did. "Noted. Show me where they are."

The buckets of crops—vigas, from what Lori could make out—were indeed stuffed root-first into various buckets, with damp soil atop them in an attempt to keep them planted. They'd been left in a line along the main tunnel of the mine, little clumps of dirt flattened into the ground around them.

Lori took the binding of lightwisps anchored to her staff and anchored them on the stone over the uprooted crops. Manipulating lightwisps outside of her demesne had gotten easier ever since she had realized the light could pass through the edges of her skin and even her fingernails. Admittedly, it needed a very strong light, but that was what actually sticking her hand into the illumination was for. No more having to put her eyes near her staff to manipulated lightwisps!

Altering the binding of lightwisps so that it would imitate sunlight was easy, since she had plenty of experience with it. if these crops died, it would not be because of improper light.

She held out a hand, both collecting lightwisps in the air for another binding to anchor onto her staff, and to imbue the binding to make it last for more than a day. "How close is the dragon?" she asked as she anchored the binding of lightwisps in place and began imbuing them to make them last.

"Hard to say, Great Binder, but we can see more of it over the trees now,"

Lori pressed her lips together. "All right. I'll do what's needed for the outside of the mine, then we can seal up the doors."

She headed back to the alcove behind the third door where she had lain, and collected the bindings of darkwisps she had anchored to the stone. As she headed out of the mine, she found trios of men and women stationed at the doors, looking nervously outside at the darkening sky. Wait, wasn't it close to noon?

Lori stepped outside and in morbid curiosity turned to look towards where she could feel the dragon's presence. There was what seemed like an undulating pillar that rose in the sky and kept on rising, fading as it grew smaller and smaller at its peak. Then her gaze lowered, and she realized it wasn't so much a pillar as a cone. The cone, covered in orange and green swirling patterns, seemed thicker than the clouds it floated above, and unlike the dragons she had seen before, this one didn't roil and bubble like boiling water. Instead it seemed to flow like thick honey, light passing and reflecting through it in disquieting ways, even as the core of the cone remained dark as ink, the suggestions of eyes and teeth glinting disquietingly within.

Patterns spun on the cone's surface, orange and green spiraling together until the swirls exploded into twisting, two-toned orange and green cloud columns that didn't look like clouds, too solid and thick like paint smearing across the sky. They erupted in too-straight lines for what seemed great distances before making an abrupt right angle turn and starting to spiral inward back to the cone. The base of the cone was just barely visibly though the trees, a dark tunnel from which fell dragon claws, streaks of many colored lighting that seemed to be sweeping across the ground like the bristles of a broom. As she watched, one of the flickering, too straight lines of lighting began to curl, forming a spiral that began to tighten as the lightning seemed to draw back into the gaping maw of the cone, even as more colored lightning unfurled and started to trail down, seemingly almost to the ground. Instead of thunder, there was a deep rumbling that Lori didn't so much as hear as feel resonating in her bones,

Lori wrenched her gaze away as she saw eyes within the base of the cone. Her heart was beating fiercely, she realized, and her breathing had fallen into the deep, even rhythm she used to most efficiently draw in magic… or to calm down. Shaking her head, she resolutely kept her back towards the dragon, and started anchoring the darkwisps she had collected to the rock outside the mine, even as he bones continued to vibrate. The darkwisps formed a half-dome over the mine's entrance, blocking out the light and the sight of the dragon.

With the dome formed, the only light left came from the lightwisps anchored to her staff. She deactivated the lightwisps on her staff for a moment, plunging her in darkness, and she reached out and claimed the darkwisps that suddenly appeared in the lightless space, binding, imbuing and integrating them to the half-dome she had anchored, anchoring the new additions to the ground and the stone of the mine, making sure she anchored darkwisps around the grate set into the ceiling of the space between the mine's first and second doors. When she reactivated the lightwisps on her staff again, the darkness remained, and she had to part the darkwisps so she could find her way again.

The militia stationed at the first door stared at the darkwisps nervously, and they stepped out of Lori's way as she approached. She ignored them for the moment as Riz stumbled out of the cloud of darkwisps after her. The Dungeon Binder touched one of the pieces of quartz that had been set into her staff, which was vibrating slightly in a steady beat. Laying her finger flat against the quartz, she extracted the lightningwisps she'd stored within, forming them into a binding. When she had extracted all the lightningwisps, the quartz lay still.

Lori couldn't reached the top of, so she used her staff to anchor the binding of lightingwisps to the stone above the door, and had the binding pass through the stone grate. That done, she stepped through the door, ignoring the way the militia there stepped hastily out of her way, and drew the binding over to the stone grate on the ceiling, anchoring it such that the lightningwisps surrounded the grate opening, then reshaped the rest of the binding so that it would extend out to her satisfaction.

"Have them close the first door so I can barricade it," she ordered Riz, "then get tell them to get ready to do the same for the second door. I need to go check something."

"You heard the Great Binder," her temporary-Rian said as Lori moved past them to head towards the alcove behind the third door. "Get that door closed and barricaded unless you want us all to get eaten by dragon born. Uh, can you leave us some light, Great Binder"

Lori stopped, sighed and turned around. She took the binding of lightwisps from her staff and anchored it to the stone wall opposite the alcove behind the first door, then collected more lightwisps from the air to anchor another binding to her staff as she continued back on her way.

The second and third receptacles next to the bead that powered the ventilation intake was still empty. Lori knelt and touched one of the metal contact points that a bead was intended to rest on. She used the metal as a channel to reach out to all the wisps the wire that lead from the receptacle was touching. Earthwisps in the stone surrounding the wide, some firewisps from the heat of her hand, airwisps in… well, the air… and darkwisps and lightningwisps from the bindings she'd anchored around the stone grate, which was where the wire led.

Good, the bindings were making contact with the wire properly.

Lori took a moment to imbue both bindings through the wire for a moment. They were unlikely to run out of imbuement any time soon, but habit was habit, and their defensive bindings could never have too much imbuement.

Then she stood and went to secure the first door.